Sparks Fly || A George Weasley Story

Year 6: One, Two, Three, Four

After a few hours spent in the hospital wing, Cedric was good as new, not even a lingering scar. Madame Pomfrey had covered his face is this weird paste that smelled even worse than it looked, and regrew his skin. We have stuff like that, but nothing for a measly headache, make that make sense. But now, we were sat at the Hufflepuff table, and I realized that none of us had talked about Heather. I knew that we had all seen her, but no one had brought her up, and I was wondering why. She was one of my best friends, and now the person sat across the room from me was a stranger.

I was hoping to get a chance to talk to her, but I'd shut down every time I tried, besides the time I spoke to her outside the library. I think a part of me worries that she'll be mad at me for what happened. It was all my fault that she got expelled to start with. If I had just been there like I said I would be, we would have already been in the shrieking shack, and no one would have gotten hurt. But instead, I was off dealing with my boy problems, which certainly doesn't make me a very good friend.

Thankfully, I was pulled from my self deprecating thoughts by Colleen once again, "So, has George asked you to the Yule Ball yet?"

"Is he supposed to? I thought since we were dating now, it was just implied that we were going together. Plus, I don't even know if he knows it's happening yet." I shrugged.

"Of course he still has to ask," She huffed, "It's called being a gentleman. You can't expect yourself to put in all that effort to look so good just to not be asked, and it's almost December now, they should be announcing it to everyone soon."

"A lot of the time George can't take a hint," I said, "How is he supposed to know that he's supposed to ask me?"

"I would say that Angelina is probably on top of it, but she's been a little preoccupied after her and Dora split, so I don't want to put anything else on her plate. I can try and talk to him about it if he doesn't ask sometime soon."

"I can't ask you to do that," I said, "There's so many other things that you could be focusing on. My love life is not your responsibility."

"You're not asking me to," She laughed, "Someone has to keep him in check and you can't do it all the time. Even one of the twins is too much Weasley for one person to keep up with normally, much less when your schedule is packed with advanced classes."

"Okay, we'll give him a week after the announcement, then you can step in if you need to," I said, shaking my head.

The next week went by without so much as a peep from Dumbledore about the ball and I was starting to get nervous. I hadn't been to a formal event since Amaryllis got remarried, and that was ages ago. I couldn't even remember what it had been like. I knew I had to go; it was on the letters that it was mandatory. However, that was about all I knew. I didn't know how to dance and I don't know how I'm supposed to eat or drink anything while being absolutely terrified that I was going to mess up my dress robes.

To protect myself from my anxious thoughts, I had thrown myself into my school work again. It was about time I tried to catch up. Having fun with George and slacking off was great and all, but if I ever expected to do anything more than be a stay at home mother, I was going to need these NEWTS. In fact, I was currently curled up in one of the greenhouses, the warmest place on school grounds besides the Gryffindor common room, sat with a huge stack of books, mostly going over Divination and Defense Against the Dark Arts.

I'd started sitting in the back of Professor Moody's class, and it seemed to keep his attention away from me for the most part. Dumbledore hadn't so much as even slapped him on the wrist after what happened on my first day, so I figured this was a grit and bare it sort of situation. I stopped raising my hand and tried my hardest not to make eye contact with him. I knew he could see everything and I didn't want to draw any sort of negative attention. Thankfully, things were going well so far. I'd brought my grades up with some recent essays, and all my studying paid off on more than a few pop quizzes.